Sunday, 9 February 2014

Alice Boman - Skiss 3

Single review by soul1@thesoundofconfusion.com

We can't be sure what a "skisser" is, but thanks to the power of the all-knowing internet, we've discovered that the word "skisse" is Norwegian for "sketch", so maybe that's the root of the name of Alice Boman's EP 'Skisser'. Alice herself is from Sweden, so not too far away, and we'll also guess that the record is, metaphorically speaking, a collection of musical sketches. Now, all of that could be wrong, but it's the best we've got! Skiss is a nicer word than sketch anyway, so we hope that's the case. The 'Skisser' EP has been available since last summer, but recently Alice has unveiled a new video for the single 'Skiss 3', and what a beautiful piece of music it is.

The visuals are hazy and fog-filled, possibly shot from a train moving through a city (maybe her home town of Malmö), and eventually silhouettes appear in front of this vista, offering an even more ghostly effect. As for the song, well, it's simply gorgeous. Boman's voice is as sweet and pure as you're likely to hear all year, and even though the song is little more than piano with the faintest outline of some strings, it totally captures you and reels you in. Creating this atmosphere with such a simple set-up is something that very few people have ever managed and this really puts Alice Boman in a special group, with perhaps her only contemporary being Perfume Genius. May she continue her sketches for a very long time.